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Pet. A match. Come Coridon, you are to be my bedfellow. I know, brother, you and your scholar will lie together. But where shall we meet to-morrow night? friend Coridon and I will go up the water towards

for my

Ware.

Pisc. And my scholar and I will go down towards Waltham,

Cor. Then let's meet here, for here are fresh sheets that smell of lavender; and I am sure we cannot expect better meat, or better usage in any place.

Pet. 'Tis a match. Good-night to every body.

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Pisc. Good morrow, good hostess, I see my brother Peter is still in bed. Come, give my scholar and me a morning-drink, and a bit of meat to breakfast: and be sure to get a dish of meat or two against supper, for we shall come home as hungry as hawks. Come scholar, let's be going.

Ven. Well now, good master, as we walk towards the river, give me direction, according to your promise, how I shall fish for a Trout.

Pisc. My honest scholar, I will take this very convenient opportunity to do it.

The Trout is usually caught with a worm, or a minnow, (which some call a penk,) or with a fly, viz. either a natural or an artificial fly: concerning which three, I will give you some observations and directions.

And, first, for worms. Of these there be very many sorts: some breed only in the earth, as the earth-worm; others of, or amongst plants, as the dug-worm; and others breed either out of excrements, or in the bodies of living creatures, as in the horns of sheep or deer; or some of dead flesh, as the maggot or gentle, and others.

Now these be most of them particularly good for par

ticular fishes. But for the Trout, the dew-worm, which some also call the lob-worm, and the brandling, are the chief; and especially the first for a great Trout, and the latter for a less. There be also of lob-worms, some called squirrel-tails, (a worm that has a red head, a streak down the back, and a broad tail,) which are noted to be the best, because they are the toughest and most lively, and live longest in the water; for you are to know that a dead worm is but a dead bait, and like to catch nothing, compared to a lively, quick, stirring worm. And for a brandling, he is usually found in an old dung-hill, or some very rotten place near to it, but most usually in cow-dung, or hog's dung, rather than horse-dung which is somewhat too hot and dry for that worm. But the best

of them are to be found in the bark of the tanners, which they cast up in heaps after they have used it about their leather.

There are also divers other kinds of worms, which, for colour and shape, alter even as the ground out of which they are got; as the marsh-worm, the tag-tail, the flagworm, the dock-worm, the oak worm, the gilt-tail, the twachel or lob-worm,' (which of all others is the most excellent bait for a Salmon) and too many to name, even as many sorts as some think there be of several herbs or

(1) To avoid confusion, it may be necessary to remark, that the same kind of worm is, in differeut places, known by different names; thus the marsh and the meadow-worm are the same; and the lob-worm or twachel is also called the dew-worm, and the garden-worm; and the dock-worm is, in some places, called the flag-worm.

The tag tail is found in March and April, in marled lands or meadows, after a shower of rain; or in a morning, when the weather is calm, and not cold. To find the oak-worm, beat on an oak tree that grows over a high-way or bare place; and they will fall for you to gather.

To find the dock-worm, go to an old pond or pit, and pull up some of the flags; shake the roots in the water; and amongst the fibres that grow from the roots you will find little husks, or cases, of a reddish or yellowish colour; open these carefully with a pin, and take from thence a little worm, pale and yellow, or white, like a gentle, but longer and slenderer, with rows of feet down his belly, and a red head: this is the dock or flag worm; an excellent bait for Gray. ling, Tench, Bream, Carp, Roach, and Dace.

shrubs, or of several kinds of birds in the air: of which I shall say no more, but tell you, that what worms soever you fish with, are the better for being well scoured, that is, long kept before they be used: and in case you have not been so provident, then the way to cleanse and scour them quickly, is, to put them all night in water, if they be lob-worms, and then put them into your bag with fennel. But you must not put your brandlings above an hour in water, and then put them into fennel, for sudden use: but if you have time, and purpose to keep them long, then they be best preserved in an earthen pot, with good store of moss, which is to be fresh every three or four days in summer, and every week or eight days in winter; or, at least, the moss taken from them, and clean washed, and wrung betwixt your hands till it be dry, and then put it to them again. And when your worms, especially the brandling, begins to be sick and lose of his bigness, then you may recover him, by putting a little milk or cream, (about a spoonful in a day,) into them, by drops on the moss; and if there be added to the cream an egg beaten and boiled in it, then it will both fatten and preserve them long.' And note, that when the knot, which is near to the middle of the brandling, begins to swell, then he is sick; and, if he be not well looked to, is near dying. And for moss, you are to note, that there be divers kinds of it, which I could name to you, but I will only tell you that that which is likest a buck's-horn is the best, except

(1) The following is also an excellent way; viz. Take a piece of hop-sack, or other very coarse cloth, and wash it clean, and let it dry; then wet it in the liquor wherein beef has been boiled, (but be careful that the beef is fresh, for salt will kill the worms,) and wring it, but not quite dry; put the worms into this cloth, and lay them in an earthen pot, and let them stand from morning till night; then take the worms from the cloth and wash it, and wet it again in some of the liquor: do thus once a-day, and you may keep worms in perfect health, and fit for use, for near a month.

Observe that the lob-worn, marsh-worm, and red-worm, will bear more Scouring than any others, and are better for long keeping.

(2) Naturalists reckon above two hundred.

it be soft white moss, which grows on some heaths, and is hard to be found. And note, that in a very dry time, when you are put to an extremity for worms, walnut-tree leaves squeezed into water, or salt in water, to make it bitter or salt, and then that water poured on the ground where you shall see worms are used to rise in the night, will make them to appear above ground presently.' And you may take notice, some say that camphire put into your bag with your moss and worms gives them a strong and so tempting a smell that the fish fare the worse and you the better for it,

And now, I shall shew you how to bait your hook with a worm so as shall prevent you from much trouble, and the loss of many a hook too, when you fish for a Trout with a running line; that is to say, when you fish for him by hand at the ground. I will direct you in this as plainly as I can, that you may not mistake.

(1) This practice was one of the common sports of school-boys, at the time Erasmus wrote his Colloquies. In that entitled Venatio, or Hunting, a company of them go abroad into the fields, and one named Laurence proposes fishing; but having no worms, Bartholus objects the want of them, till Laurence tells him how he may get some. The dialogue is very natural and descriptive; and being but short, is here given. "Lau. I should like to go a fishing; I have a neat hook. Barth. But where will you get baits? Lau. There are earthworms every where to be had. Barth. So there are, if they would but creep out of the ground to you. Lau. I will make a great many thousands jump out presently. Barth. How? by witchcraft? Lau. You shall see the art. Fill this bucket with water: break these green shells of walnuts to pieces, and put them into it; wet the ground with the water. Now mind a little. Do you see them coming out? Barth. I see a miracle; I believe the armed men started out of the earth after this manner, from the serpent's teeth that were sown." The above exclamation is clearly an allusion to the fable in the second book of Ovid's Metamorphoses; where Cadmus, by scattering the serpent's teeth on the ground, causes armed men to spring out of it.

(2) The running-line, so called because it runs along the ground, is made of strong silk, which you may buy at the fishing-tackle shops; but I prefer hair, as being less apt to tangle, and is thus fitted up. About ten inches from the end, fasten a small cleft shot; then make a hole through a pistol or musket bullet, according to the swiftness of the stream you fish in; and put the line through it, and draw the bullet down to the shot; to the end of your line fasten an Indian grass, or silkworm-gut, with a large hook. Or you may, instead of a bullet, fix four large shot, at the distance of eight inches from the hook. The running-line is used for Trout, Grayling, and Salmon-smelts; and is proper only for streams and rapid waters. See Part H. Chap. XI.

of

Suppose it be a big lob-worm: put your hook into him somewhat above the middle, and out again a little below the middle: having so done, draw your worm above the arming of your hook; but note, that, at the entering of your hook, it must not be at the head-end of the worm, but at the tail-end of him, that the point of your hook may come out toward the head-end; and, having drawn him above the arming of your hook, then put the point your hook again into the very head of the worm, till it come near to the place where the point of the hook first came out, and then draw back that part of the worm that was above the shank or arming of your hook, and so fish with it. And if you mean to fish with two worms, then put the second on before you turn back the hook'shead of the first worm. You cannot lose above two or three worms before you attain to what I direct you; and having attained it, you will find it very useful, and thank me for it for you will run on the ground without tangling.

Now for the Minnow or Penk: he is not easily found and caught till March, or in April, for then he appears first in the river; nature having taught him to shelter and hide himself, in the winter, in ditches that be near to the river; and there both to hide, and keep himself warm, in the mud, or in the weeds, which rot not so soon as in a running river, in which place if he were in Winter, the distempered floods that are usually in that season would suffer him to take no rest, but carry him headlong to mills and weirs, to his confusion. And of these Minnows: first, you are to know, that the biggest size is not the best; and next, that the middle size and the whitest are the best; and then you are to know, that your minnow must be so put on your hook, that it must turn round when 'tis drawn against the stream; and, that it may turn nimbly, you must put it on a big-sized hook, as I

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